“Don’t do it.”
That’s the most common response I hear when I ask teens to sum up what their friends think the Bible says about sex. They think in terms of law, judgment, and limits. And they contrast this with the message they hear from the culture around them: “Be whoever you want to be and love whoever you want to love. It’s no big deal.”
It’s pretty clear which message sounds more like good news. But of course, the truth is that the Bible’s message about sex, attraction, identity, and relationships is by far the better news.
So how do we help our teens to hear it that way?
I’d like to suggest that if we want to prepare teens to combat the culture’s lies and stand strong (and joyful) on the truth of God’s Word as it relates to sexuality, we need to learn to go beyond behaviors and rules and tell a more compelling story—one centered in the larger story of God.
After all, the Bible is not only full of stories, it is a story. The gospel story: creation, fall, redemption, new creation. And in this story, sexuality is not a footnote, not a random rule, but a theme that can be traced from its beginnings in creation to its end in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Creation
We, as human beings, are the pinnacle of God’s creative work. He made us in his image, and he made us sexual, embodied people, male and female (Genesis 1:26-28)—not randomly but because he wanted to paint us a living picture of something deeper and more wonderful. Marriage and sexuality are wonderful gifts, but they’re actually foretastes of something far better—of a perfect, eternal union of God with His people.
We see glimpses of this throughout the Bible, where God is portrayed as the faithful, loving husband who is wooing his people back in spite of their unfaithfulness (Isaiah 54:5, Jeremiah 3:20, Hosea 3:2). Paul gives even more clarity when he says our marriages are meant to picture Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33).
This means that in the midst of the practical conversations we have with our kids around God’s design for marriage, we need to remember that human marriage was never the ultimate goal. Our sexuality is designed to point us to an even deeper love, intimacy, and union with our God. This takes the pressure off our earthly relationships. It reminds us that the greatest relationship we can have is always available to us, whether or not we ever get married or have sex. And it simultaneously infuses earthly relationships with more significance, as our marriages are meant to paint for us and for the world a picture of our ultimate Lover.
Fall
That was God’s grand vision, but instead of joyfully stepping into it, humanity rebelled. We decided to take God’s gifts and use them in a way we thought was better—but that actually brought immeasurable hurt and brokenness. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command to not eat that one fruit because even though God said it would bring death, they thought it looked good (Gen. 3:2-6). They discredited God’s character and Word and thought he was holding out on them. They thought they’d be better off doing things their way.
They were wrong, but we do the same thing all the time. We take God’s good gift of sexuality (or anything) and think we can trust ourselves more than him, that we’ll be happier if we do what we want. But we’re not happier. We’re anxious and depressed and lonely and ashamed; we deal with abuse and pornography and abortion and divorce and STDs and hearts that ache for something more.
We need to be clear with our teens that all of us are broken and sinful, whether we’re virgins or promiscuous, gay or straight (Rom. 1-3). None of us has a pure heart. We’re all broken and doomed to eternal death without Christ (Rom. 6:21-23).
That means we shouldn’t look down on those who struggle with particular sins (Rom. 2:1-4). And it helps make sense of the hurt and confusion many people feel when it comes to sexuality. A teen who is entangled in a porn addiction or worried that they’ll never get married needs to know that they are not alone. All of us stand in equal and total need of a Rescuer.
Redemption
And that, after all, is exactly why Jesus came! He was God’s answer for the brokenness of everything, the mess that sin had caused. He came with astonishing love for people who least deserved it—for prostitutes and traitors, the broken and the sick (Mark 2:17). Jesus took on the limits of a human body and experienced our pain, our brokenness. He felt the sting of rejection, the weight of judgment—and the ultimate victory!
This is the only hope we have for redemption: Jesus. And this makes us look differently at the “rules” of sexual ethics. Our teens can’t abstain their way to purity or earn holiness as a badge of honor. Their hope (and ours!) is not in better choices—which is good news, because deep down we know our imperfections! Our hope is Jesus.
Of course, we shouldn’t stop calling our teens to holiness. But it changes our whole approach. They no longer have to stress about if they’re good enough or if they’re beyond hope because of past choices. They don’t need to compare ourselves to others, see what we can get away with, or try to paint a perfect image. They (and we) can instead rejoice in the holiness that is already ours as believers, and in response offer the rest of our lives, whatever the cost, in an act of gratitude to the one who gave everything for us (1 Corinthians 1:1-2, 30-31).
New Creation
One day, Jesus will return to complete all of what the cross purchased for us. Eternity will be the fulfillment of all our deepest longings, and it will be better than our wildest dreams. Revelation describes the end of the story as the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7-9), and this is a marriage of perfect joy and intimacy that will never end. The best of marriage and sex on earth is just a faint shadow of what’s coming. The deepest love or pleasure or closeness that we experience is meant to awaken us to the greater love and joy offered in Christ.
Now, that’s good news! That is meant to stir our teens (and ourselves) to turn away from the good-but-insufficient things that tempt us away from Christ (Phil. 3:8). It will motivate them when life gets hard and the way of following Jesus looks like taking up a cross and dying—whether that’s because of sexuality-related issues or any other trial. Life may have trouble, and following Jesus may be costly, but there is resurrection at the end.
Sexuality, as seen in the story of Scripture, is not first and foremost about rules. There’s so much more to it. It’s an invitation to a relationship with the perfect Lover, one who offers a truer freedom, a deeper intimacy, and a better “ever after” than any other love story.
Be sure to check out Rooted’s Featured Family Discipleship Course: “Parenting and Pornography”